PEOPLE TEND TO VOTE ON ECONOMIC ISSUES, but the environment
presented major issues in this year's legislative session, and
it's a factor in the gubernatorial race, too.

There's been a good amount of discussion over proposed
moratoriums on large hog-farming feed lots and greater scrutiny
of Koch Refining, which has been one of the state's biggest
polluters.

In both cases, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has come
in for plenty of criticism. Nearly every candidate for governor
is promising to restructure it. DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike
Freeman says it'd be one of the first things he'd do as governor.

Freeman: There's been a total lack
of leadership from the governor and from the commissioner of
the PCA in terms of what needs to be done.

Freeman says the MPCA also needs to apply equal regulations
to business and industry.

Freeman: We don't want one company
getting away with avoiding hazardous-waste disposal
regulations, which gives them a tremendous competitive
advantage. They want it fair and across-the-board. And right
now we've got a total mess - from Koch Refining to hazardous-waste
disposal to clean air - and we need a major housecleaning
at the PCA.

Freeman says the state should phase out nuclear power and
invest more in the research and development of renewable energy.

Freeman: The plants at Prairie
Island and Monticello ought not to be re-licensed when their
licensure runs out in 2011 or 2014. That's 13 or 15 years
from now. I believe, instead, that that nuclear power should
be replaced by renewables whenever possible, but the most
environmentally friendly fuel.

He says once nuclear plants are decommissioned, the state
should provide the economic development needed to employ the
workers who'd lose their jobs.

Freeman: If we continue to put our
head in the sand and say, "We're not going to do anything,"
we're going to face the same problem we faced in 1993 and
1994: "You got to approve more casks or we shut down." And I
think it's incumbent upon policy makers to start that
discussion now, and that's why I've started.

Freeman says the state should also stress greater energy
conservation.

Freeman: Anybody's who's driven the
state as much as I have and seen these all-night gas stations
with zillions of light bulbs on all-night long. You can see
five, ten miles away. It makes no sense to do that.

Freeman favors stronger polices to slow urban sprawl.

Freeman: We need to have clear urban policies that encourage areas to re-develop versus taking
virgin farmland and forests and cutting them down. We need to
stop sending city tax dollars to the fourth-ring suburbs and
subsidize roads and other development. We need to continue to
develop our urban core, to spend time improving our
neighborhoods, to improve inner-city transportation.

Freeman supports polices that assist in the re-development of
the inner city for business and industry. That's why he supports
funding to clean up so-called "brownfields" - polluted
urban land that is worthy of new development.